


Truth be Told

by Malkin Grey (malkingrey)



Category: Castle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malkingrey/pseuds/Malkin%20Grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate Beckett doesn't think it's fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth be Told

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ReaperWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/gifts).



Nobody likes to talk to the police.

Beckett knows this. She even understands it, sort of. Guilty people don't like talking to the police because, surprise, they're _guilty_. But innocent people don't like talking to the police either. She didn't understand that part at first, but it didn't take her long to figure out that everybody, in their secret heart, is guilty of something. Unpaid parking tickets, overdue library books, completely irrelevant love affairs -- all the dirty little secrets that accumulate during a lifetime -- those things fester in the soul and scare people away from telling the police all the other things they need to know.

She understands this, but she still resents it every time she has to work for hours coaxing a statement out of a reluctant witness. And she it resents even more when that same witness, confronted with Rick "I'm a best-selling writer" Castle and his line of casual chatter, opens up and tells the man everything.

"I don't get it," she says. "I can't convince a retired librarian to talk about a shooting that took place in broad daylight right in front of her apartment. You spend half an hour talking to a contract killer and come away with two firm leads and his mother's chocolate chip cookie recipe."

"It was a good recipe."

"It was the recipe from the back of the bag of chocolate chips."

"You can't go wrong with the classics," he says. "I'll bet your mother used that recipe."

He's right, of course, and knowing that she has something -- even a cookie recipe -- in common with Joey the Fish does absolutely nothing for her self-image.

"It doesn't matter," she prevaricates. "What I want to know is what you do to them to make them talk."

"What I do to them?" Surprisingly, he looks a little bit hurt. "I don't _do_ anything."

"It must be something you say to them, then."

"Oh. That. I tell them that I'm a writer and I want to know all about whatever it is that they do."

"That's it?"

"And I explain that when I tell other people their story, I want to get it right."

"And do you?" she asks. "Want to get it right?"

"Writing is all about telling the truth."

"Just last week, you said it was all about telling lies to strangers for money."

"If you're in the business of lying," he says, "telling the truth is very important."

"Oh, _that's_ profound."

"And practical. Every time you get something wrong, another reader throws your book against the wall and doesn't buy the sequel."

She thinks about Esposito and Ryan cataloging procedural errors on cop shows she's long since grown too disgusted with to watch, and considers that Castle may actually have a point. Then another thought occurs to her.

"Nikki Heat's story. Do you think you're getting that one right?"

"It isn't finished yet," he says. "But I believe I'm on the right track." He gives her what he probably thinks is a suggestive leer. He really isn't very good at them. "If there's anything more about her that you want to tell me--"

"In your dreams, Castle," she says. "In your dreams."


End file.
